The final days in the run-up to local elections in Chiapas were marked by violence. In terms of the alliance for local deputies, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM) are in coalition for 16 of the 24 electoral districts. However, in at least 12 Chiapas municipalities there have been documented incidents and attacks between members of the two parties: in Playas de Catazaja, Oxchuc, Tzimol, Tumbala, Chilón, Cacahoatán, Tila, Frontera Comalapa, Ocotepec, Tuxtla Chico, Huixtla, and Mapastepec.

During the night of 16 July, a group of masked men armed with sticks, stones, and rockets (presumably allied to the PVEM) robbed photographic equipment and cash, and beat the journalist Juan Orel, during his coverage of an incident in the Boulevard of the Federations in the Comitán municipality. The incident in question occurred when the reporter was covering an attack by the masked men against a group of PRI militants. Another case of aggression took place in Tila. The Committee on Human Rights Digna Ochoa made public that residents of the Tila municipality denounced that “there prevails in the Tila municipality a climate of generalized terror among the population, provoked by the presence of armed groups that serve the PRI and PVEM.” Beyond this, the communique from the Digna Ochoa Committee mentions that “among the residents there exists a fear that the electoral process will end with a massacre, given that, to date, the Chiapas state government led by Manuel Velasco Coello has been totally absent in terms of guaranteeing the right to life, integrity, and personal security of the people of the Tila municipality.”

On April 16, Chiapas´ state governor, Manuel Velasco Coello, announced the resignation of his General Secretary for Governance, Eduardo Ramírez Aguilar, who is to be replaced by the PRI official Juan Carlos Gómez Aranda. Ramírez Aguilar, a former mayor of Comitán, will return to the House of Deputies. In July 2013, he solicited the license for the position that he just left.

Juan Carlos Gómez Aranda was a founding member of the Federal Congress’s Commission for Concordance and Pacification, which participated in dialogues with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN). He held the position of federal representative in the time-period during which he was coordinating the PRI Chiapas group and oversaw the Southern Border Commission. Before taking up his new charge, he was head of the Secretary for Planning, Public Management, and Government Program.

No explanation was given as to the change in the cabinet, though rumors point to differences between the Mexican Green Ecologist Party (PVEM, to which the governor belongs) and the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), in a government that has been in alliance between these two parties. Rumors indicate that the resignation of Ramírez Aguilar took place following a meeting between the state potentate and the federal Secretary for Governance (SEGOB), Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong. Other sources stress the presumed connections between the state official with a “paramilitary organized crime group” as a possible motive.

On 20 November, in observance of the Day for Global Action for Ayotzinapa, protests were held in solidarity with the relatives of the disappeared students from Ayotzianapa in many cities throughout the world. From three points in Mexico City, thousands of persons marched, accompanying caravans of students and relatives of the disappeared from Ayotzinapa to arrive at the rally in the Zócalo of the capital. After the rally, when the mobilization that had been peaceful to that point ended, a group of youth launched rockets and attempted to break down the principal entrance of the National Palace. Riot police intervened against them, as against the rest of the protestors who had not participated in this intensified phase. People were injured and arrested, but the authorities have not released any official data. Meanwhile, on social networks photographs emerged demonstrating presumed infiltrators in the protests, who were placed there supposedly to destabilize the protests.

The parents of the 43 disappeared students from Ayotzinapa expressed, before hundreds of thousands of people assembled in Mexico City’s Zócalo, that “this is not just about Guerrero: all throughout Mexico there are secret graves full of persons who have been executed outside the law and forcibly disappeared.” This was their conclusion following the tour they carried out in several states of the country during the previous week, including the north and south of the country. At the act at the Zócalo, one of the organizers reported that in more than 185 cities of the world, people had come out to the streets to demand the presentation with life of the 43 disappeared students.

In Chiapas, thousands of students, teachers, campesinos, and citizens in general marched in a dozen municipalities to demand the presentation of the students who were disappeared on 26 September. At least 4000 marched peacefully in the capital Tuxtla Gutiérrez. In San Cristóbal de las Casas, a protest was organized that counted with the participation of a thousand people. After a group of presumed infiltrators burned down shops after looted them, a strong police presence was deployed, leading to the arrest of several protestors. Regardless, the police had been nowhere to be seen until 2pm; the morning of the protest progressed without any visible police presence. The protestors distanced themselves from the counter-violence that was exhibited at the beginning of the march, when some set an Oxxo and part of a Soriana store on fire. They accused the government of sending agents provocateurs. Later, authorities announced the arrest of 13 “anarchists.” Also in Comitán, Venustiano Carranza, Ocosingo, Tapachula, as elsewhere, protests were held. Dissidents shared similar slogans, including, “You took them alive; alive we want them back,” and “Zapata lives; the struggle continues!”

On 24 September, the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico (#REDIM) and civil organizaitons carried out a symbolic protest in 11 cities of Mexico and in Geneva, Switzerland, “toward the end of calling on the Senate to be careful in the reforms it is implementing with regard to the bill presented by the president’s office, so that [senators] consider changes to be relevant and to guarantee the rights of the nearly 40 million children and adolescents who live in Mexico.”

The organizations stressed that “in this new General Law initiative, it is very important to guarantee an adequate and transparent budget for implementation; that the participation of civil society be contemplated via voice and vote; and that truly participatory mechanisms be established so that children and adolescents can opine regarding the decisions which affect them, such that these opinions be taken into account in terms of the construction of public policies having to do with children.”

Symbolic protests were carried out in Guadalajara, Jalisco; Morelia, Michoacán; Tehuacán, Puebla; Comitán, Tapachula , and San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas; La Paz, Baja California; Poza Rica and Xalapa, Veracruz, and in Mexico City. Protestors carried black umbrellas to symbolize the protection that is sought with this new law.

On 16 and 17 September, there were held new mobilizations against the planned construction of a highway between San Cristóbal de Las Casas and Palenque, both in the Tseltal ejido San Jerónimo Bachajón, Chilón municipality, as in the Tsotsil ejido of La Candelaria, San Cristóbal municipality. The Movement in Defense of Life and Territory was created through the mobilizations organized against this project.

On 16 September, banners and signs were raised in communities and parishes to express popular opposition to the highway project. On 17 September, ejidatarios from San Jerónimo Bachajón blockaded the Temó crossways en route to Palenque to demand “the cessation of harassment and threats against our ejidal authorities and other comrades, in light of the decisive defense of our territory and our disagreement with the highway project.”

Furthermore, on 17 September there was held in Laguna Suyul, La Candelaria ejido, a ceremony and joint declaration of more than 2,000 Tsotsil, Tseltal, Ch’ol, and Tojolabal persons from the San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Zinacantán, San Juan Chamula, Huixtán, San Pedro Chenalhó, San Pablo Chalchihuitán, San Juan Cancuc, Tenejapa, Amatenango, Chilón, Tila, Salto de Agua, Comitán, and Las Margaritas municipalities expressing opposition to the highway project. In the declaration of Laguna Suyul, considered sacred land of the peoples of the Highlands of Chiapas, the writers indicate that “we will defend the environment, the fabric and veins of mother earth: rivers, lakes, springs, mountains, caves, and hills. We will defend the lives of animals, sacred places, the ecosystem of Mother Nature, and the lives of human beings.”

Also, on 21 September, some 3000 Ch’ol indigenous persons from the Tila parish carried out a pilgrimage in the municipal center against the planned highway projects between San Cristóbal and Palenque as well as between Villahermosa and Palenque, as against the plundering of lands for mineral extraction, and they denounced the increase in drug addiction rates, alcoholism, and prostitution.

During the morning of 21 December, in observance of the change in Baktún, or the beginning of the new Mayan era, thousands of indigenous support-bases affiliated with the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) concentrated themselves at the entrances of 5 cities in Chiapas (San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Ocosingo, Altamirano, Palenque, and Las Margaritas) before carrying out silent marches through each one. This was understood as a symbolic act, given that some of these cities were taken by the EZLN during its insurrection of 1994. On this occasion, covered with ski-masks but lacking firearms, carrying the national flag and the Zapatista one together, the Zapatistas directed themselves to the principal plazas of these cities, where they erected kiosks which were raised by all. After this, they left as rapidly and orderly as they entered. Preliminary reports spoke of 6 to 10,000 Zapatistas in each location.

Zapatista march in Palenque, 21 December 2012 (photo @SIPAZ)

The “silent” message presented by these marches could hardly be more convincing, demonstrating the continued life and relevance of the movement, as well as showing that it is not principally based on its leadership. The communique released by the General Command (announced for a month beforehand on the Enlace Zapatista webpage) makes reference to the rigorous silence that was maintained during the day, noting: “Have you heard? It is the sound of their world collapsing. It is the sound of ours resurging.”The EZLN support-bases had not mobilized themselves publicly since May 2011, when they expressed their solidarity with the victims of the war launched by Felipe Calderón against drug trafficking and with the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, led by the poet Javier Sicilia.

In light of the deterioration of the human-rights situation lived in Chiapas, the civil organizations that comprise the Peace Network agreed in early 2010 to carry out documentation-visits in distinct regions of the state of Chiapas from which have originated testimony regarding problems that disrupt the international protection and guarantee of human rights, thus putting at risk conditions of social peace.

The organizations that constitute the Peace Network organized a “Civil Mission of Observation of Human Rights and Social Conflictivity,” which began its work of observation and documentation in four municipalities of the border zone of Chiapas: Comitán, Trinitaria, Comalapa, and Chicomuselo.

The Civil Mission visited these municipalities during the days 16, 17, and 18 March 2010. In each of the municipalities were held interviews with actors who agreed to share their testimony on various issues regarding human rights. The questions that received the most emphasis during the interviews were organized around the following themes: migration; militarization; land and territory; economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights; rights of women; and criminalization of social protest. The results of these interviews can be found in a published report that was presented during the 7 October press-conference.

On 6 August, there was held a space among interviewed individuals and organizations during the March civil mission to assess the information that went into the report, which allowed for the report that was presented at the press-conference to be finalized. This report presents an evaluation of the tendencies and principal problems documented during the mission as well as possible moves toward the construction of peace that, despite everything, were seen as present in the visited municipalities.